In computers, it is common to use more than one of the same type of add-on cards and to assign them to different I/O ports. For instance, two add-on cards for hard disk controls and two or more network interface cards are frequently used in computers. When the add-on cards used are of the jumpless type, the operation of the cards must be controlled by specific software programs supplied by the card manufacturers. Since there are no jumpers on the cards, it is impossible to tell the content from the appearance of the cards. As a consequence, interferences between the cards frequently occur which lead to computer down time.
Presently, jumpless add-on cards use designated I/O ports to read or to change the designated content. When the I/O ports on the same card has the same definition of functions, the same response from the card is obtained. When a multiple number of add-on cards all have the same designated I/O ports, the same response is obtained from the program such that it is impossible to distinguish whether the card that is operating is a single card or a multiple number of cards. Even when the designation on the cards are changed, cards using the same I/O port would change accordingly such that it is still impossible to distinguish the cards. In a prior art method, the user of a computer manually designates each one of the add-on cards and then insert them back into the computer. This is a laborious task and frequently causes other problems.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a method to separate jumpless add-on cards having identical I/O ports onto different I/O ports without the shortcomings of the prior art method.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method to separate jumpless add-on cards having identical I/O ports onto different I/O ports by providing a special comparator in the computer hardware.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method to separate jumpless add-on cards having identical I/O ports onto different I/O ports by providing a special comparator in the computer hardware and by utilizing a software program to manipulate such that different response can be obtained even though the add-on cards are using the same I/O ports.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a method to separate jumpless add-on cards having identical I/O ports onto different I/O ports by using a comparator and a software program such that when different responses are received from the add-on cards, the software detects the same I/O port being used by different add-on cards and thus separate them onto different I/O port to solve the problem of I/O port designation conflicts.